By Allan Fox: IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (36-0, 33 KOs) has a big fight against Daniel Jacobs (32-1, 29 KOs) in less than two weeks from now on March 18 on HBO pay-per-view. Golovkin says he wants to gift his boxing fans a “big gift” in his fight against Jacobs, which means he plans on turning the fight into a war for as long as it lasts.
Jacobs and his trainer Andre Rozier are talking as if they plan on trying to box Golovkin, but it might be hard for them to do that if he stays close all night long the way he did in his last fight against Kell Brook. If you saw that fight, Brook was trying to escape the pressure of Golovkin by circling the ring as fast as he could, but it didn’t work. Golovkin was right on top of Brook, forcing him to fight the entire time.
“It’s a magic show. I’m ready. He’s ready. This is big gift,” said Golovkin to Villianfy about Jacobs fight on March 18.
The Golovkin-Jacobs fight is taking place at Madison Square Garden in New York. Jacobs is from New York, and that means he’s going to have a lot of his boxing fans from Brooklyn coming to see him fight. Fighting in front of opponent’s hometown crowd doesn’t seem to bother Golovkin. If anything, he seems to get motivated even more. Jacobs is going to need to be ready to fight at a fast pace in this fight for him to have a chance of winning. Can Jacobs’ stamina hold out if he’s put under a fast pace fight? I don’t know.
The only guy that has forced Jacobs to fight at a fast pace during his career was Dmitri Pirog, and he knocked him out in 5 rounds. It is bad news for Jacobs that he’s fighting someone that will force him to battle all out in Golovkin. With Jacobs training in Andre Ward’s trainer Virgil Hunter’s gym in Hayward, California, it’s quite possible that he’ll have been given tops about holding frequently to try and smother Golovkin’s offense. It would be bad for the boxing fans if Jacobs chooses to hold all night long to try and tire Golovkin out, but it’s quite possible. Hunter is Ward’s trainer, and we saw how much he used holding and wrestling in his last fight against Sergey Kovalev. By the second half of the fight, Kovalev looked exhausted from the wrestling that Ward was doing. We haven’t seen anyone wrestle Golovkin nonstop to try and tire him out. Martin Murray attempted to do a lot of holding to keep Golovkin from throwing punches, but it didn’t work. Gabriel Rosado was holding frequently against Golovkin, but he wasn’t wrestling him the way Ward was with Kovalev.
“Right now, Golovkin has all the hype about him,” said Peter Quillin to Fighthype.com. “This is a middleweight fight with two guys with explosive hands and anything can happen in this fight depending on who has the better game plan. Hopefully, Danny can stay focused with the odds stacked against him. Yes, it is at this level. For Danny as well,” said Quillin when asked if this is Golovkin’s biggest test.
“I think whoever gets hit first,” said welterweight contender Errol Spence to Fighthype.com when asked his prediction of the Golovkin-Jacobs fight. Danny Jacobs can punch, and Golovkin has proven that he’s easy to hit. I think whoever gets hit first,” said Spence.
I think Spence is seeing the Golovkin-Jacobs fight in the wrong way. Neither of these guys have one-punch power. It’s not who lands the first big punch. It’s who lands an accumulation of big shots. I don’t think Jacobs can win by a knockout. Golovkin has too good of a chin. If there’s going to be a knockout in this fight, it’s going to be Golovkin. Jacobs has proven that he doesn’t have good punch resistance. Jacobs can maybe out-box Golovkin if he can move all night long and tie him up 10+ times per round without being penalized repeatedly or disqualified. Referees don’t seem to penalize and disqualify fighters like they used to for excessive holding. It’s possible Jacobs could follow the Ward blueprint that he used for the Kovalev fight and try and wrestle Golovkin for 12 rounds instead of fighting him. It’ll be ugly though.